Mississippi Department of Archives and History

The Mississippi Civil War Sesquicentennial continues and in the coming months we will be highlighting Museum Division collections related to 1864 and the Civil War. Special thanks to Nan Prince, assistant director of collections, for writing this series.

Consisting mainly of yeoman farmers and cattle herders, Jones County had the lowest percentage of slave population of any county in Mississippi when the state seceded in 1861. After the passage of the Twenty-Slave Exemption law in 1862 by the Confederate Congress, which exempted anyone owning twenty or more slaves from the draft, many soldiers from Jones County left the army and returned home. Shocked by the harsh conditions on the home front, citizens led by Newton Knight turned Jones County into a haven for Confederate deserters in the spring of 1864.

Confederate officials sent Colonel Robert Lowry to squash the Jones County rebellion in April. Using blood hounds to drive Knight’s men out of the swamps, Lowry caught and hanged many of the rebels and ended the insurrection; although Knight himself escaped. After the war, the United States Army made Knight a commissioner in charge of distributing food to the poor and starving of Jones County. He made the unpopular choice of supporting the Republican Party during Reconstruction and in 1872, was made deputy United States marshal for the Southern District. Robert Lowry rose through the ranks during the war to become a brigadier general. After the war, he was elected to two terms as governor of Mississippi.

The Mississippi Civil War Sesquicentennial continues and in the coming months we will be highlighting Museum Division collections related to 1864 and the Civil War.Special thanks to Nan Prince, assistant director of collections, for writing this series.

Marching from Vicksburg, Union General William T. Sherman began a campaign to destroy the strategic railroad center of Meridian, Mississippi, in February 1864 and ordered Brigadier General William Sooy Smith to come down from Memphis to meet him in Meridian. Against Sherman’s orders, Smith delayed his departure for several days. Once in Mississippi, Smith’s seven thousand cavalry troops encountered minor resistance until they met with Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s troops in West Point on February 21. Smith retreated to Okolona, and Forrest pursued. On February 22, Forrest’s troops attacked Smith on the prairie outside Okolona. After a day of fighting, Smith retreated back toward Tennessee, thus jeopardizing Sherman’s Meridian Campaign. The Battle of Okolona resulted in one hundred U.S. casualties and fifty Confederate, including the loss of Colonel Jeffrey Forrest, the brother of Nathan Bedford Forrest.

This Model 1860 Colt revolver belonged to Captain William Bean Peery of the Fifth Mississippi Cavalry. It was originally issued to Marias Kelly of Company C, Seventh Indiana Cavalry, who was taken prisoner at the Battle of Okolona, February 22, 1864.

A “List of Negroes employed on fortifications near Columbus, Miss., 1863″ (part of Series 608: Miscellaneous Civil War Documents) was recently digitized. It is a twelve-page list of slaves impressed to work on the fortifications near Columbus, Mississippi. The list is from Headquarters, 4th Brigade, Miss. State Troops. It gives the owner’s name of each slave and the slave’s name, age, complexion, and height. Implements, if any, brought by each slave are also listed.

The Mississippi Civil War Sesquicentennial continues and in the coming months we will be highlighting Museum Division collections related to 1863 and the Civil War. Special thanks to Nan Prince, assistant director of collections, for writing this series.

In the fall of 1863, Union and Confederate armies engaged in several clashes in northern Georgia and southern Tennessee that were fought to determine control of the strategic rail center of Chattanooga, Tennessee. After the defeat of the Union army at the Battle of Chickamauga, General Ulysses S. Grant deployed troops that had been stationed in Mississippi to the area. On November 23 and 24, Union troops pushed Braxton Bragg’s Army of Tennessee troops out of their defensive positions at Orchard Knob and Lookout Mountain. The battle ended on November 25 after troops under General George H. Thomas scaled the heights of Missionary Ridge in one of the greatest charges of the war, breaking the Confederate line. The battle for Chattanooga was over, and Union forces controlled the town that General Sherman would use as his supply base for his march to Atlanta and the sea the next spring.

A number of Mississippi regiments fought in the Chattanooga Campaign, including the 10th and 41st Mississippi Infantries whose flags are pictured here.

This sword belonged to Colonel James A. Campbell of the 27th Mississippi Infantry. He was taken prisoner at the Battle of Lookout Mountain, sent to Johnson’s Island Prisoner of War camp in Ohio, and died there on February 4, 1864.

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Welcome! Access to featured items is available at the William F. Winter Archives and History Building in Jackson unless otherwise specified. Research requests posted in the comments section are not routed to the library. Please contact the Reference Desk with your request at 601-576-6876 or refdesk@mdah.state.ms.us.